A United Nations working group issued a report describing (i) .......... need to draw up valid plans for dealing with the global water crisis. The report emphasizes the critical necessity of galvanizing political efforts to (ii) .............. resources and (iii) ............. international attention on both water and sanitation.
The key word in this sentence is “crisis.” You need adjectives and verbs that play well off of it. If you don’t know the meaning of exigent, you can use the process of elimination to identify the right answer. (B) cretaceous means “chalky,” and one wouldn’t describe a need as chalky. You can eliminate (C) specious—it means “false” and is the opposite of what you’re looking for. That leaves (A) exigent, which means “immediate.” It is the correct answer. Which of the actions would be required in a situation of “critical necessity”? Recall that there is a water crisis, so the resource involved is water. The word ineffable means “unable to be expressed,” so it makes no sense in this context. However, if you didn’t know that word, you could use the process of elimination to narrow your choices. If there were a water crisis, water would not be abundant, so you can eliminate (E). That leaves (F) mobilize limited resources. “Limited” makes sense in the context of a crisis, so it is the correct choice and a solid guess if you weren’t certain of the meaning of choice (D). If you’re galvanizing political efforts to stave off a crisis, it’s likely you would want to (H) focus, or concentrate, international attention on water use. (G) foment, “to incite,” and (I) ferment, “to brew,” both have connotations about creating; neither makes sense in context, so both are incorrect.